With the pandemic causing disruption to the education of children everywhere, there’s a good chance that your child has spent less time in school than would normally be anticipated. Lockdowns and isolation periods have meant that there’s a period of a couple of years that a lot of school-age children have missed out on in terms of their education.
For some, they’ve been able to pick up the baton as parents, and carry on the teaching at home. For many of us though, we’ve been caught in a juggling act that sees us trying to keep on top of work and other commitments at the same time. Perhaps then, it’s time that we looked more seriously into how a home tutor might be of some benefit.
Tailored lessons
If your child excels at certain lessons, but struggles with others, it makes sense to spend a little more time on the areas that need a little more work. By hiring a tutor who specialises in one particular subject, you can help your child to gain a better grasp of whatever it is that they struggle with. Practice makes perfect after all.
Just the way in which a different person explains something can be helpful. As adults, we’re aware that we just ‘click’ better with some people than others, and it’s no different for kids. Even for teachers that your child is fond of, there may be something that they’re just not covering in their explanation that really brings an idea to life. A fresh voice can often remedy that.
Tutoring is a great way to reinforce learning on subjects that your kids might be struggling with. The more flexible environment allows you to provide tailored curriculum support where needed and make it fun and interactive. It’s also a great opportunity to interest your kids in topics they might not encounter in a normal educational setting. With the use of a more humanistic approach, tutoring can encourage curiosity, imagination, and a lifelong love for learning.
Flexible times
The beautiful thing about home tutoring is that you can choose the days and hours that your child learns. This means that weekends and summer holidays are all available as potential learning days.
That being said, be careful to make sure that your child has plenty of down time in which they don’t have to work, and can just play instead. The last thing you want to do is burn them out at a young age. Learning should ideally be fun and interesting. If it becomes a chore with no respite in sight, then it’s easy for children to switch off altogether.
One-on-one learning
Being able to have a tutor devote all their attention to one student is invaluable. It means that any instance in which a topic isn’t entirely clear, students can ask questions and have them answered there and then, without having to hope that a teacher will eventually be able to get round to them.
There’s also less scope for tomfoolery. As someone who was/is easily distracted, school was a brilliant opportunity to muck about with my friends. With their peers out of the way, kids are better able to focus on the task at hand, and find it easier to retain information in some cases.
This individual learning model also benefits children who are naturally quite shy. It’s common for some kids to be nervous of putting their hand up and asking for help. Even when amongst friends, there may be times when a child doesn’t want to admit that they haven’t quite ‘got’ something that their classmates seem to have mastered. With that element of ‘competition’ and worrying if they’re at the same stage as everyone else out of the way, students can relax and work at their own pace.
It’s not you
Seems an odd benefit to list, but trust me, it definitely is a huge boon. Having attempted to homeschool my son during the lockdown, it was clear that he saw me as the ‘fun’ dad, and not necessarily someone to make him do work for hours each day. Because he’s so comfortable around me (which I think he should be!), he found it hard to motivate himself to do tasks that he didn’t want to.
Bringing a home tutor into the mix instead is far more likely to make your child more productive. They’ll be keen to show what they already know to a stranger, and to prove that they can perform tasks that they’ve been set.